Russia now accusing Ukraine of directly participating in the fighting in Georgia last year. Ukraine is getting nervous about the increasing pressure from Russia. The nightmare scenario is a Russian invasion, to reclaim Ukraine as part of the "Russian Empire." The U.S. has lost its enthusiasm for letting Ukraine join NATO, thus leaving Ukraine on its own to deal with Russian aggression.
Russia will have a pretext for war if they invade, no matter what they have to make up to justify their "defensive" invasion. Remember Georgia?
Russia's military is weak so I don't know if they could pull off a successful invasion and conquest of Ukraine. Although the Russians might be content to seize the Crimean Peninsula and eastern Ukraine where ethnic Russians are dense.
But Ukraine is weak, too. Ideally, Ukraine would have infantry able to hold their cities, both to keep the Russians from taking them and to serve as strongpoints around which mobile forces could maneuver. These would strike at the flanks of Russian mechanized forces as they are sucked deep into Ukraine where they can be hit after losing vehicles on the march and extending their supply lines to the breaking point. And the Ukrainians should at the same time seize the Sevastopol naval base from the Russians to at least have a bargaining chip.
But I doubt that Ukraine's army is up to fighting a war like this. Or any war at all, really.
The Ukrainians need to focus. Russia is eying them up and down.
